100 Years Ago: 1925

An article for February 22, 1925 is unavailable, an article from February 22, 1924 is being offered instead.

Washington’s Birthday heralded the second annual Winter Carnival for Hallowell.

The day apparently was made for the occasion and the whole town turned out in honor of King Winter, and his bunch of merrymakers. Places of business were closed for the afternoon and fully a thousand people were assembled at the Vaughan playground where the events were held, to witness the school children in their snowshoeing and skiing stunts. It was a real get-together of Hallowell fathers, mothers and other citizens.

Promptly at 1 o’clock a parade including the school children of the city assembled near the Central Fire station and marched up Water Street to Winthrop thence to Second to Lincoln from there to the playground and were headed by the youngsters of the North end fife and drum corps under the leadership of John Smith.

50 Years Ago: 1975

Lewiston police were informed early today by Westbrook police of the theft of $40,000 worth of fur coats from a home in that town, yesterday. Police were advised to be on the lookout for nine fur coats, stoles and ponchos. The word came by teletype shortly after midnight but they were not supplied with either the name or address of the owner.

The list includes an azurene mink coat worth $5,000; a lunaraine mink coat, $9,200; a black mink coat, $5,200; a Chinchilla stole, $5,000; a pastel mink pocket stole, $2,500; a black diamond mink poncho, $3,500; a Gucci beige Eisenhower stole, $3,000; a white mink jacket, $3,500; and a black and white mink jacket, $3,500, totaling $40,400.

25 Years Ago: 2000

David Kimball is a sixth generation farmer with a pretty good sense of humor. He’s a storyteller out for a belly laugh when he’s not tending cattle, hoeing vegetables or baling hay.

He says he loves to share a good tale with about anyone who’ll listen, and he’s always on the prowl for new material.

“I’ll steal a good story from anybody,” said the 58-year-old Kimball unabashedly.

He likes to stick with Maine humor, saying his stories on lobstering, logging, farming and working in potato fields are often delivered best with a native touch. “We think it’s OK when we laugh at ourselves, but we don’t think it’s OK when the flatlanders, the rich people from Massachusetts, do it.”

The material used in Looking Back is produced exactly as it originally appeared although misspellings and errors may be corrected.